God Bless America (B+)

First off, I give props to Bobcat Goldthwait for having the courage to make a movie that was so over the top and non-PC that I was literally amazed it wasn't banned.  It reminded me of how the world must have felt similar shock when Pink Flamingos first came out, where instead of a story about perverted white trash it was about a dude that wants to kill anyone and everything to do with pop culture (and does).  As I watched I just couldn't believe that this movie didn't stir up more criticism from the general populace for making light of spree killers and demented whacko's.   Strangely I sympathized with the main character's issues with society and several scenes definitely gave me anxiety, Bobcat did a good job of over-emphasizing what pushed Frank (main character)'s buttons and ultimately made him lose it.  

The opening scene...wow (see pic below).  Wasn't ready for that.  Seriously considered not watching the rest of the movie if that's what it was going to be like.  But as I kept watching I started understanding the tone of the movie and the things that made him want to go nuts on a daily basis, so I became interested to see how this would end.  It ended up bloody, with a crazy body count.  Random killings, spree killings, imagined killings, etc.  But this movie had one thing going for it that other violent movies didn't have (e.g. Rampage), it had a good script.  The dialogue between Frank and his little sidekick was entertaining, and the killings seemed less senseless if you understood why they were going insane. 

A B+ instead of an A because it wasn't very realistic.  Sure there's lots of whacko's out there in the news everyday that flip out, but not a dude and a 15yr old girl that just keep going, crime after crime and not getting caught.  It's like there were no police on their tail, no witnesses or evidence that would get them caught?  Not likely.  But in the end it was still a good flick, very original and didn't hold back.  I'll probably be on the FBI watch list now for watching and commenting on this movie, oh well.  I still recommend watching it.  I could watch it again whereas I don't think I can ever watch Pink Flamingos again.

Cicada Killa

Act of Valor (B-)

Ok, if you can accept that the acting is pretty bad and just enjoy the crazy action scenes, you too might also give this a decent rating.  The dialogue has a strange Navy commercial feel to it, not very "real life".  I like to think that most soldiers curse alot, but the dialogue in this was delivered overly perfect and clean.  It was actually the complete opposite of the dialogue in Full Metal Jacket, which my brother (a Marine) said was pretty accurate.  Maybe Navy guys are just more proper and eloquent? 

Anyway, the action was nuts.  From what I read online they used alot of live ammo to blow things up and shred stuff with insane machine guns.  That's something my brother did mention about fake Hollywood action movies; the artillery looks/sounds nothing like the real stuff, for example he said real hand grenades have such powerful percussion that it practically takes your breath away.  Most Hollywood grenades look like a poofy of fire and some dirt flying out of a small hole.  Well, Act of Valor was the opposite, the sound and destruction just felt authentically awesome.   Especially the river boat scene with the miniguns (see below pic of the bullet-riddled SUV), that scene was unreal.  I suppose having the entire Navy arsenal at your disposal makes it easy to put awesomeness into a flick.  If only it had R.Lee Ermy in it, then this would have ruled. 

Part of me watched this and missed the cheesiness of the Charles Sheen & Michael Biehn epic "Navy Seals".  Remember the scene in where they go golfing in 80's neon shorts?  That ruled.